News from HHU-Research

There is plenty of research activities at Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf. Selected recent news - from all divisions - are monitored on this page. You also will find more posts with research topics here: HHU Twitter.

Together with Japanese colleagues, biophysicists at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and Jülich Research Centre have examined the folding of specific proteins in yeast fungi. They discovered similar mechanisms to those found in prions, i.e. proteins that are misfolded and can trigger neurodegenerative diseases. From the prions in yeast, the researchers were able to acquire new insights into the misfolding of these harmful proteins. Their results have been published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

In collaboration with British colleagues, chemists at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) have discovered that simple organic carbonyls are potential emitters for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). These molecules are much cheaper and easier to produce than the compounds used today. The research results were presented as a cover story in the scientific journal CHEMPHYSCHEM.

Researchers led by Professor Holger Gohlke at the Institute for Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU), together with colleagues at Georg-Speyer-Haus in Frankfurt/Main, have developed a potential drug candidate that could act against leukaemia. Use of the respective patents to develop a therapeutic product is now being financed from NRW and European Union funds.

Endophytic fungi are a very promising source of new active substances. An interdisciplinary team of researchers in Düsseldorf has identified and isolated the new agent chlorflavonin, which shows a previously unknown mode of action against tuberculosis. They have now published their results, which were produced in the framework of Research Training Group 2158, in the scientific journal American Chemical Society – Infectious Diseases.

Higher cells originally acquired the ability for photosynthesis by assimilating cyanobacteria and converting them into their own cell organelles or what are known as plastids. How exactly this occurred has been examined by a research group led by Dr. Eva Nowack of the Department of Biology at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) using the amoeba Paulinella chromatophora. The results were published today in the scientific journal Current Biology.

In the framework of the new “FunALD” project, a consortium of companies together with research and higher education institutions, including Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU), wants to develop materials for innovative and intelligent sensors. At the heart of the project are the manufacture and use of a new class of functional materials on nanometre scale. The role of HHU’s physicists is above all to take care of nano and surface analysis.

With the help of a plasma amplifier, an international team of physicists, including researchers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU), has succeeded in increasing a laser beam’s energy by 100 millionfold. Theoretical physicists from HHU were involved in the project, which was led by the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. They have now published their results in the journal Scientific Reports.

A team of German and Dutch researchers has unveiled the mechanism of one of the oldest biological clocks in Earth’s history in cyanobacteria. With the help of state-of-the-art molecular structural analysis techniques, the researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried and the University of Utrecht, together with Junior Professor Ilka Maria Axmann from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU), succeeded in characterizing three ‘clock’ proteins in detail and understanding their interaction. Their research results have now been published in the journal Science.

CEPLAS, the Cluster of Excellence at Heinrich Heine University Düs-seldorf (HHU), and the Collaborative Research Centre in the field of molecules and membrane systems are about to benefit from prestigious reinforcement: Researcher and biologist Professor Wolf B. Frommer, who until recently worked in Stanford, arrives today as Alexander von Humboldt Professor at HHU’s newly established Institute of Molecular Physiology. He will also work in Cologne and Jülich. HHU was namely successful, together with the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne (MPIPZ) and Jülich Research Centre, in securing the best endowed German research prize. The professorship has been granted funds to the tune of € 5 million.

28.02.2017 – On 23 July 2014, Düsseldorf biologist Professor Sieglinde Ott sent the lichen Buellia frigida found in Antarctica to the International Space Station (ISS). This international and interdisciplinary project is examining the survivability and resili-ence of different organisms as well as the stability of biomole-cules under space and simulated Mars conditions. After months in space, the samples returned to Earth in June 2016. Analyses of the lichens and the biogenic substances have now com-menced. The objective is to understand how they have survived in space as well as how resilient and stable they are under ex-treme conditions.